Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
Facultad de Lenguas Modernas
How necessary is learning English during and after high school: major
students at BUAP
A thesis submitted to the school of languages
For the degree of
Licenciatura en la Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras.
By:
Laura Rodríguez Tenorio
Thesis director:
Mtra. Elba Méndez García
How necessary is learning English during and after high school: major students at BUAP
This thesis has been read by the members of the thesis is committee of:
Laura Rodriguez Tenorio.
And is considered worthy of approval in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree
Licenciatura en la Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras
Thesis director
__________________________________________ Mtra. Elba Méndez García
Esta dedicación especial es para mi papá Alejandro (q.e.p.d) sino hubiera sido por su apoyo, amor y comprensión yo no hubiera sido lo que hasta ahora soy gracias papá Ale, te extraño.
A mi mamá quien aparte de darme la vida es mi mejor amiga, me ayudó a que lograra mis objetivos en la vida gracias mamá Mary, te quiero mucho.
A mis hijos Carlos y Martín que fueron mi pilar para terminar esta tesis ustedes saben cuánto los amo y son mi vida gracias mis amores.
A Carlos que ha compartido conmigo tantos años, gracias.
A mis hermanos Jana y Danny son los mejores hermanos del mundo y los mejores tíos, los quiero mucho.
A mis amigos que me han alentado para que terminara esta tesis gracias.
Esta dedicatoria es importante, para mí asesora de tesis, maestra Elba Méndez García. Muchas gracias maestra porque usted logró que hiciera realidad mi sueño, lo que temía hacer, le agradezco de corazón y que Dios la bendiga.
Una dedicación especial para mis lectores Mtro. Leonel Ojeda Ruiz
Mtro. Jesús Lorenzo Moreno Carvajal les agradezco su tiempo y la atención dedicada a mi trabajo, su apoyo fue importante para mí, gracias.
Abstract
This research shows the opinions that student from different majors from the BUAP expressed about how necessary they think English is during and after high school.
In this study I applied questionnaires to students from Medicina, Contaduría Pública, Administración Pública, Comercio Internacional, and Derecho y Ciencias Políticas. The questionnaires which were analyzed using a quantitative analysis. This study explores the needs that students from major have some questions were related to the importance of English in the careers and what they used to identify if the English that students learned in high school make them easy or difficult their actual studies.
The results indicated that students need to have a good level from their high school because when they are in the university they have some problems. This causes that the English they learned in high school do not help them totally in their degrees to read and understand texts, either to make good presentations or to dialogue in English, but the knowledge they got has been useful. The level students acquired in high school were not good enough, but it covered the necessities they had when they were in high school that is why, students did not see the language as an imposition.
Students suggest adding more hours of English, review the syllabus to give more importance to conversation ability; they said that they have more problems to speak than to write, they accept to bring some problems with the language and that is why sometimes they ask help.
In my reflection of this research, I suggest that Colegio de Bachilleres del Estado de Puebla researches about ways to improve English programs.
INDEX
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM. ... 1
1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY. ... 3
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 3
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ... 4
1.5 DEFINITION OF TERMS ... 4
CHAPTER II
:
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 DEFINITION OF NEEDS ANALYSIS. ... 62.2 ORIGINS. ... 8
2.3 BENEFITS OF NEEDS ANALYSIS. ... 10
2.4 METHODOLOGY OF NEEDS ANALYSIS. ... 11
2.4.1 QUESTIONNAIRE. ... 11
2.5 THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING ENGLISH. ... 12
2.6 ENGLISH TEACHING IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. ... 13
2.6.1 LEARNERS ... 13
2.7 COLLECTING DATA FOR NEEDS ANALYSIS ... 14
2.7.1 INSTRUMENTS ... 14
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
3.1SUBJECTS ... 19
3.2 INSTRUMENTS ... 20
3.3 PROCEDURES ... 20
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS
4.1 ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONNAIRE... 214.1.1 CHARTS... 21
CHAPTER V
5.1 CONCLUSIONS……….……….365.2 IMPLICATIONS ... 38
5.3 LIMITATIONS ... 39
5.4 FURTHER RESEARCH ... 39
REFERENCES ... 41
APPENDIX A ... 43
1 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introductions to the problem.
Nowadays one of the most useful languages is English. The global development of this language has increased in the last 40 years, and for many people it is considered as a necessity, and it is used by many societies more frequently. In our political and economical society, English is very important and it seems that everything around is influenced by this language. Most of the technologies to improve our education, the food supplies, the structures of machines, etc., use English as a tool.
English is the world´s major language of international economy, which means that it is not limited to any country, region or culture. In a world where the multiplicity of people creates greater language diffusion, it brings money, technology and ideologies. Even if it is taught for decades in the world it has been considered as a necessity. This attitude toward the importance of English is forcing the people to learn it as a part of their daily activities.
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In México, public and private schools offer English courses as a school subject. This school subject is usually present in junior high and high school levels. Sometimes, English as a school subject is also offered in elementary levels in public schools, but it is always present in private elementary school programs. It is very improbable that public kindergarten schools expose children to English, which private kindergartens always do. English as a school subject, however, is present in all university majors and programs all over the country. After university, people have to pay for English language courses.
As it was discussed above, talking about English in schools in México is a big problem because it can influence education. It can change the kind of life of our children in kindergarten. It is not obligatory and they are not worried about learning the language. When they are in elementary school, they do not understand completely this language, but it is until they are in high school when they have problems with it. Fortunately in México most of high schools teach English as a foreign language and a basic knowledge of English is offered in difference of elementary and kinder garden education.
According to the Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP 2006) in México, it is obligatory to take English lessons from kindergarten to high school. It also determined that this subject will be obligatory in 2018 when it will be taught in all schools in the country. This information is very important and mainly if we talk about English as a foreign language it must be taken by all students from high school.
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could have a better lifestyle. In addition, when they arrive to university, they would be able to understand this language better.
1.2 Purpose of the study.
As we have seen, learning English in high school prepares our students for university. Unfortunately, some high school students ignore the importance of English as a subject. They do not care about their English subject during their high school studies. As a result, when they arrive to the university they have different difficulties with this subject. Some graduate high school students who are doing university studies at BUAP in the city of Puebla have expressed that they find their English course at university hard. They have had bad experiences such as not understanding the teacher, failing the exams, not doing the homework, among others. As a consequence, they get low grades. They have asked me and other English teachers at the faculty of languages for help. Therefore, this research will be focused on investigating why the students express that they have difficulties at the English courses at the university. The general objective of this thesis work is to know how necessary English is for students of majors at BUAP during and after high school.
1.3Research Questions
1. Why do university students express that they have difficulties at the English courses at university?
2. What do students from university need English for?
4 1.4Significance of the study
The significance of this research could help teachers from different high schools (Bachilleratos Generales, BUAP high schools, COBAEP, and the other English teachers) to detect what common problems could face ex-students who are taking English courses at BUAP majors that did not take care about the subject of English when they were students at high school.
1.5Definition of terms
Need: The type of need determined by the demands of the target situation, that is, what the learner has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation (Munby, 1978).
Need analysis: The process of determining the needs for which a learner or group of learners requires a language and arranging the needs according to priorities… (It) makes
use of both subjective and objective information (Richards et al., 1992 cited in Jordan1997:20).
Want: A need does not exist independent of a person. ¨It is people who build their images of their needs on the basis of data relating to themselves and their environment” (Richterich, 1984:29).
Lack: Represents the gap between the target proficiency and what the learner knows already (Hutchinson and Waters, 1979).
Demands: It is to claim or require something like a service during a specific time (Sampat, 2002).
5 Aims: It is to aspire something or to have an objective, defined in Reynolds, Fletcher-Janzen (2007)
6 CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Definition of needs analysis.
Needs analysis is “the process of determining the needs for which a learner or group of learners requires a language and arranging the needs according to priorities” (Jordan, 1997).
According to this, we can say that needs analysis helps us see what the student wants to learn, so we can design a syllabus that meets the students‟ priorities.
According to Brown (1995) there are four divergent philosophies that can arise in a need analysis. Discrepancy is what a student needs in the future and what he/she is doing right now. Democratic is when the learners decided to change something in their lives. Analytic refers to whatever the students will learn and what processes are involved. Diagnostic is when something is missing and they have to learn it. It includes immigrants depending on their needs or their work.
Needs analysis includes two distinctions “objective needs” and “subjective needs” (Brindled, 1984). The first ones are those that can be described through data collecting, testing. The subjective needs “are about what the students‟ “wants, desires expectations or other psychological manifestations of a lack” (Bindley, 1984). In other words, the information that cannot be attained through standardized testing, only through observation.
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On the other hand, lack is the information that learners do not know. Then, want is the individual motivation or feel about what learners want to know about any topic. They are related to the learners‟ ambitions, motivations and perceptions. Other terms have been proposed for “needs analysis”. These include target situation analysis, present situation
analysis, deficiency analysis, strategy analysis, means analysis, language audits, and constraints. There are other terms proposed for “needs”, which are: necessities, demands, wants, likes, lacks, deficiencies, goals, aims, purposes and objectives.
According to Nation and Malicaster (2010), necessities are things that the learner has as a demand and what the students have to learn when they are going to arrive to the university or when they have to get a new job. Lacks is about the missing things that the learners have; for example, when they need to answer something they do not have enough knowledge about in English. The last one is the wants. It is about their own point of view of the students, what they would like to learn, to prepare something important for them. As Chan (2001:1) said: “learners are often seen as the best judges of their own needs and wants because they know what they can and cannot do with the target language and what language skills are most essential”. Needs analysis is a way to find out what are the
8 2.2 Origins.
This term was first used in India in 1920 (West, 1997:68), when Michael West noted that there existed to two events “what learners will require to do with the foreign
language in the target situation, and how learners might best master the target language during the period of time”.
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987:54), it is important to identify a current theory about the learners‟ needs for studying English. As these authors state, the need is “the
ability to comprehend and produce the linguistic features of the target situation”.
Over the passing of years, little attention has been paid to this important aspect of the language curriculum; due to “the influence of the traditional structural view of language
continued to exert on the field of English language teaching” (Alshumaineri, 2009:3), which means students were taught to repeat instead of reasoning and applying the language according to their needs.
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are two different types of needs: target needs and learning needs. Target needs are what the learners need to do in the target community. Learning needs is what the learner needs to do in order to learn”.
There are set of procedures for discovering target situation needs which were proposed by Munby (1978). These procedures are called communication needs processor (CNP). They consist of questions about key communication variables. The target situation needs can be called in terms of necessities, lacks and wants. Necessities are what the learner has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation; on the other hand, when you know what the learner knows already, you can decide which the learner lacks are. Then, we have the wants; this refers to what the learners want or feel that they need. It is important to take into account the learner motivation in the learning process; learner perceived wants cannot be ignored. On the other hand, it is necessary to know how to gather information about target needs, we can use: questionnaires, interviews, observation, data collection, and informal consultation with sponsors, learners and others. It is desirable to use more than one of these methods, but this will depend on the time and resources available.
On the other hand, we have the learning needs. The whole (ESP) process is concerned not only with knowing or doing, but rather with learning. For example, as teachers we should look for texts that are more interesting or humorous in order to generate the motivation needed to learn English. In order to identify learning needs, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) propose that we can use the following framework:
10 How do the learners learn it, what resources are available, who are the learners,
where and when will ESP course take place?
Both target and learning needs are important. It should be taken into account because target needs are concerned with use. We must also know about learning. There are many different reasons to learn and to speak English could be ages, nationalities, to get new jobs, to travel, to study some different majors, to learn about cultures, etc.
The concept reemerged in the 1970‟s when the council of Europe conducted a series of studies that resulted in the development of the communicative approach (Alshumaineri, 2009:3).
2.3 Benefits of needs analysis.
When we are teaching English, we notice that our students have different interests and attitudes towards it. What needs analysis helps us to decide is what material to use, how the syllabus should be designed and what material we need for the course; it also helps us to know who our students are and know what their expectations and needs are for the course.
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It is recommended that the needs analysis is done at the beginning of the course so we know what the student needs, so we can focus on the students rather than having the students revolve around the teacher (Wynne, 2003).
2.4 Methodology of needs analysis.
There are variations on how to carry out a needs analysis, but basically this should include a questionnaire, a proficiency exam, and in some cases an interview with the students. We must understand that this analysis must be on a continuous basis, because their needs are changing, their personal situations, to mention a few.
2.4.1 Questionnaire.
The questionnaire is for the student to be aware of his/her learning and the manner for him/her to improve. Here are a series of questions that can be asked:
On a scale of 1 (not very important) to 10 (very important, rate how important you consider the following aspects of language learning:
Amount of teacher correction
Functions (giving opinions, arguing, etc.)
Grammar
12 2.5 The importance of learning English.
English has become the lingua franca in some important organizations such as the United Nations and the international chamber of commerce, among others. However, it is also the case in the information around the world. Most of it is written in English and if we want to access it we need to learn it. It has also become an important part of the basic skills we have to master, because most of the job offerings demand that applicants have a good understanding of the language.
As we can see, to have an advantage not only in job market but also in the educational field, there is a need to learn another language, and many companies demand that future employees have a good knowledge of the English language. For example, the BUAP demands that the students have a certification in English in order to graduate. In the case of the faculty of law and social sciences, it gives students the opportunity to take any of the different English certification tests and prepare for them at the faculty of modern languages (see appendix a).
Many important universities demand that you have at least some comprehension of the written language. This may be because some articles that the teachers give students are in English. Some master degrees at the BUAP demand that students know some English and it is part of their entry exams, such as the masters in administration of small and medium size enterprises (Vicerrectoría de Investigación y estudios de posgrado, 2013). Here we can see part of the requirements to get accepted in this master degree:
2. aprobar el examen de admisión, que incluye:
conocimientos y habilidades
comprensión de lectura en inglés
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This is just a small example; however, it is very obvious that many university candidates need to learn this language to have access to better opportunities.
As we can see, English has become an important part of students‟ academic life. Nevertheless, there are a great number of students who enter higher education levels with a serious disadvantage because they cannot handle a basic level of English. Therefore, if we want our students to have an important advantage in their future careers, we should improve the teaching conditions of our high school students. This way, we can seriously improve any advantage they obtain for their future endeavors.
2.6 English Teaching in High School Students. 2.6.1 Learners
They are different in age, sex, and nationality; they have different level of knowledge of English, different interests, socio-cultural background, learning styles, and attitude. Some people from these groups are students. Sysoyev (2000) suggests different ways to get information about the needs of the students. It can be through questionnaires, surveys, group discussions, and individual talks. There are different kinds of students. They have different needs. It could be possible to adapt the syllabus according to the students‟ needs.
14
There are some recommendations for students to learn English for example: reading texts and practicing the oral activity. Learners try to understand the reading, getting a good comprehension. The second one is about finding some videos, movies, TV programs, etc. the third recommendation is to write every day a diary. With this methodology the learners will practice their writing, when they come to class the teacher reviews homework and practices oral activity. If the students practice it, they will learn English easily.
We could conclude that there can be three kinds of English language learners. The first group may be those who do not know any English and need to learn the basics of the language. The second group knows some English but need to use it according to their job and sometimes they have short period to do it. In addition, there is another classification of students like college students of different degrees, for example: medicine, biology, architecture, commerce, engineering, law, etc. They have different necessities according to their careers; the programs of university are based on those necessities and degrees.
2.7 Collecting Data for Needs Analysis
2.7.1 Instruments
According to Dudley-Evans (1998) there are many and different strategies to collect information about the learners‟ need to know English. First, questionnaires are used to get
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We can use observation, which is a watching activity. We realize this activity chronologically, during a certain period, in order to analyze the performed tasks. Then, we have analysis of authentic texts which can be written documents, audios, or spoken information, however the spoken data is more difficult to get, though the information will be more objective.
We also have the assessment that allows us to identify the performance and progress of the learners and will give us an evaluation to advance. In addition, we have the discussions which are short dialogues that give us beneficial information which will show facilities and difficulties about any topic. Questionnaires, surveys, group discussions, individual talks, etc., record keeping like diaries and journals are gotten through what occurs during the lessons.
We would need to know which subject was going to be studied. Also we have to know the level, and the language necessary for this. We need to see which of the study situations and the related study skills were relevant for the students. I would need to assess the students´ current abilities in English and study skills to determine the gap.
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17 2.7.2 Procedures documentary
Jordan (1997) describes 14 data gathering techniques to find about the learners needs. These are summarized in table 1.1:
Technique Description
Advanced documentation It is requested to get information about educational background, specially references as to abilities and any other relevant aspects.
Language test at home It can be conducted in the students before they are accepted by a university, this test should indicate their strengths and weaknesses and indicate the length and type of language course needed.
Language test on entry It can be conducted on entry to the target institution it could provide diagnostic information and indicate students „language learning priorities, such test can a variety of forms (multiple choice, questions on grammar, vocabulary to dictations, note taking tasks, reading comprehension, speech production checks, writing assignments, paraphrasing, summarizing, analyzing data, describing, open-ended questions, essays).
Self-Assessment It can be assess themselves this is of various ways, most involve the use of questionnaires there the students indicate their ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Observation and monitoring It can be applied in a language laboratory it can identify it oral/aural difficulties.
Class progress test It can be used to correct some errors
Surveys It can be undertaken by means of questionnaires, it can be useful in discussions with subjects departments, administration, etc.
Structured interview It consists of prepared questions where the answers are noted or recorded.
Learner diaries (or journals) It can be used to get learning experiences they are based upon introspection.
Case-Studies It can be used as a way of obtaining in-depth information and insights.
Final test At the end of a course provides information on learning difficulties and other aspects like teaching difficulties, inappropriate material etc.
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Follow-up Investigations They can be carried out sometimes after a course has finished where the students answer some questions and they said what part of the course was most and least useful.
Previous research It is relevant to the students or type or course under consideration. According to the necessities people have to communicate. when they need to get a job (oral and written interviews) are in English when they emigrate, when they are in the school, etc.
19 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the methodology used to carry out this thesis is described, along with the subjects, instruments, and procedures followed in the data analysis. Methodology is descriptive, quantitative and non-experimental. Data is collected using quantitative instruments and it is used to describe the issue. Experiments were not carried out as hypotheses were not formulated for testing.
3.1 Subjects
This part has been designed in order to limit the group of study is. The groups of participants we have investigated are studying different degrees: Medicine, Public Accounting, Public Administration, International Commerce, Law and Political Sciences among others. All of them belong to the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. The location of the university is Av. San Claudio, Col. Ciudad Universitaria. The students from this university are from different social status, ages, and interests. This group of participants consisted of 82 students in the afore mentioned areas, which 40 were females and 42 males, their ages were from 20 to 23 in an average, they were studying there third and four year in university, these students have already taken their English courses in their faculties, in addition 80% of the students came from public schools and 20% came from private schools.
20 3.2 Instruments
For this research I designed a questionnaire (see appendix b) which consisted of 20 multiple choice questions. These questions were all related to the use of English in the degree.
The first four questions referred to the importance of English in their respective careers. The next ten questions were about the level and importance of English during high school. Then, the following four questions were about the importance of the different skills in English which they might use for getting a job. The last question was used to identify if the English that students learned in high school made it easy or difficult for them in their current studies.
3.3 Procedures
21
44 29
9
0 0
10 20 30 40 50
¿Qué tan importante consideras
el idioma inglés para tu carrera?
n. alumnos CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS
In this chapter the results of the thesis are presented and analyzed. Also, the answers to the research questions, based on the teachers and students responses, are presented.
4.1 Analysis of questionnaire
4.1.1 Charts
I present the following charts, which were applied to 82 students from different faculties. The following chart corresponds to the answers of the first question in the instrument given by all the participants.
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shows us that the majority considers English as extremely important for their degree and we can also see the need for studying it.
The following chart corresponds to the answers of the second question given by the participants.
This chart shows that the most important element of English is the pronunciation; 24 students consider that the vocabulary is the most important element; 16 students think that grammar is the most important element of English, and only 5 students consider that fluency is the most important element in learning English.
Students consider pronunciation as the most important element because according to their degrees, they will speak it in order to show they can speak the language very well.
37
24
16
5
0 10 20 30 40 50
¿Cuál de estos elementos
consideras más importantes en
el aprendizaje del inglés?
23
The answers of the third question were the following:
University student‟s goal is to get a good job and in order to achieve this, they need to learn English. as we can see 44 students think English is necessary to get a good job, 17 students consider English is important to continue their studies; 12 students say that they need the language to read information in English; 7 students indicated that English is necessary for other reasons, and 2 students need English for investigation projects. We can infer that students do not necessarily need English for their studies; instead they need it for the jobs they will get after university.
The following chart corresponds to the answers of the fourth question.
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These results show that 46 university students think that they need to converse in their degrees, so they consider the most important ability students need in English is “speaking”; 23 students consider that the comprehension of texts is important for their studies; 9 students need English to write something in English, and (interestingly) only 4 students say that they need English to understand when people speak to them.
The following chart corresponds to the answers of the fifth question:
According to the answers shown in this chart we can see that 66 students consider English as a necessity; 11 students see English as an obligation, and only 5 students study English because they like it.
The next ten questions refer to the English of high school. These were the answers of the sixth question:
66
11
5 0
20 40 60 80
necesidad obligación gusto
Considero que aprender inglés
es un/una...
25
It is clear that university students need English, but how well students learned English in high school. This chart tells us that 35 students consider the amount of English they had after finishing was ok; 21 students think the level of English they got was sufficient.
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This chart represents how much students say that learned English grammar in high school. As we can see 46 students learned just a little about the grammar, and 17 students say they learned much, and 19 students say they learned nothing. Here we can say that more than 50% of students have just a poor knowledge of English grammar. English grammar taught in high school is not enough, according to the participants‟ opinions.
The following chart represents the answers given to the eighth question:
When we want to learn English something that helps us is to learn the vocabulary of the language; however, according to this chart 46 students consider they learned just a little of vocabulary in high school; 18 students learned a lot of vocabulary, and 18 did not learn anything of vocabulary. We can see that not only the grammar students learned is poor, but also the vocabulary.
18
46
18
0 10 20 30 40 50
mucho vocabulario poco vocabulario nada vocabulario
El curso de inglés en el
Bachillerato/ la Preparatoria
cubrió mis expectativas en cuanto
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This chart represents the answers of the ninth question:
Many students need to read texts in their degrees; however, many of them are written in English. As this chart represents, the knowledge of English students acquired in high school was not enough to read in English. 48 students think the English they learned in high school helps them just a little to read texts in their degrees; 21 students consider the English they acquired does not help them to read, and only 13 students think the English they learned helps them a lot to read texts in English.
The following chart represents the answer of the tenth question:
13
48
21
0 20 40 60
mucho poco nada
Los cursos de inglés del
Bachillerato/ la Preparatoria me
han servido para leer los textos
referentes a mi carrera.
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One of the most important skills is “speaking”, the courses of English in high schools have not been enough for students to speak in English in their degrees. According to the results of this chart, we can see that 51 students think that the courses of high school have helped them just a little to give presentations about topics related to their studies; 21 students think that the courses in high school have not helped them at all, and only 10 students think the courses have helped them a lot to perform oral tasks.
The following chart represents the results of the eleventh question:
10
Los cursos de inglés del Bachillerato /
la Preparatoria me han servido para
dialogar, exponer temas referentes a
de acuerdo en desacuerdo totalmente en desacuerdo
En mi opinión, el curso de inglés en el
Bachillerato/ la Preparatoria era una
imposición.
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The previous results are very similar. When students think about their English courses 25 disagree with the idea that English was an imposition, 23 agree with this idea, 18 students totally disagree with the idea that English was imposed and 16 students totally agree about the idea that English was imposed. We can infer that almost 50% of students saw English as an imposition, but another 50% did not see English as a negative language.
This chart represents the answers of the twelfth question:
We know that students have certain needs, so how much did the courses of English of high school solve the necessities of students when they were studying in that level? As we can see in the previous chart, 37 students agree that their high school needs were covered. We have to remember that their needs have changed because now students are studying a degree. 27 students disagree on the cover of their needs, 9 students totally agree and 9 totally disagree with this statement.
9
de acuerdo en desacuerdo totalmente en desacuerdo
El curso de inglés en el Bachillerato/ la
Preparatoria resolvió mis necesidades
de aquel entonces.
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The thirteenth question had the following results:
In México Spanish and Mathematics are the most important subjects in elementary, secondary and high school. As we can see more than 50% of university students (46 students) totally agree that English should have the same importance as those subjects. 28 students agree with this idea. On the other hand, 5 students disagree with the importance of English in comparison with Spanish and Mathematics; only 3 students totally disagree with this statement. We should take into account that students of university think that the importance should be the same, because they see the need of learning English.
46
28
5 3
0 10 20 30 40 50
totalmente de acuerdo
de acuerdo en desacuerdo totalmente en desacuerdo
Creo que la materia de ingles debería
tener el mismo peso e importancia
que matemáticas y español en el
Bachillerato/ la Preparatoria.
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The following chart represents the results of the fourteenth question:
We have seen that students acquired a low level of English in high school but we can consider that one of the most important reasons might be the hours students learned English in high school. Many schools give English 3 hours a week. As this chart shows 42 students totally agree and 35 agree with the idea that high schools should give more hours of English. Only 4 students disagree and only 1 student totally disagrees with the idea that more hours of English should be given.
The next chart represents the results of the fifteenth question:
42 35
de acuerdo en desacuerdo totalmente en desacuerdo
de acuerdo en desacuerdo totalmente en desacuerdo
Ahora que estoy en mi carrera considero que los cursos de inglés que me dieron en el Bachillerato/ la
Preparatoria me han sido útiles.
32
It is important to know if English courses taken in high school have been useful for them. As we can see 32 students agree with this statement, 11 totally agree with it; however, 26 students disagree with the idea that English has been useful for their degrees, and 13 totally disagree with it.
The next four charts describe the use and need of the different skills of English in jobs. The following chart represents the answers of the sixteenth question:
36 students think that it is sure that in any job people ask them to speak in English, 22 students consider it is so sure, 19 students say it is almost not sure. On the other hand, only 5 students think it is definitely not sure that people ask them to speak in English. We can see that almost all the students that answered the survey agree with the idea that speaking in English will be a requirement in any job.
22
36
19
5 0
20 40
muy seguro seguro casi seguro nada seguro
Yo creo que en cualquier parte donde
vaya a pedir trabajo es _____ que me
requieran hablar en inglés.
33
The results of the seventeenth question are the following:
As it can be seen 34 students think that it is sure that in any job people ask them to write in English, 18 students consider it is so sure, 21 students say it is almost not sure. In contrast, only 9 students think it is definitely not sure that people ask them to write in English. We can see that almost all the students that answered the survey agree with the idea that writing in English will be a requirement in any job.
The answers of the eighteenth question were the following:
22
muy seguro seguro casi seguro nada seguro
Yo creo que en cualquier parte
donde vaya a pedir trabajo es _____
que me requieran leer en inglés.
yo creo que en cualquier parte
donde vaya a pedir trabajo
es___ que me requieran escribir
en ingles.
34
22 students think that it is very sure that in any job people ask them to read in English, 36 students consider it is sure, 21 students are almost sure. On the contrary only 3 students think it is definitely not sure that people ask them to read in English. We can see that almost all the students that answered the survey agree with the idea that reading in English will be a requirement in any job.
The following chart represents the answers of the nineteenth question:
27 students think that it is very sure that in any job people ask them to listen in English, 29 students consider it is sure, 20 students are almost sure, just 6 students think it is definitely not sure that people ask them to listen in English. We can see that the participants that answered the survey agree with the idea that listening in English will be a requirement in any job.
The last question was the following: if you had not taken English in high school as one of your school subjects, your studies would be harder or the same than they are now. As we
27 29
20
6
0 20 40
muy seguro seguro casi seguro nada seguro
Yo creo que en cualquier parte
donde vaya a pedir trabajo es
_____ que me requieran
escuchar en inglés.
35
can see 49 students consider their studies would be harder if they had not taken English in high school, and 33 students consider that their studies would be as hard as if they had not taken English.
Regarding the research questions and basing on the results it can be concluded that students find it difficult to learn English in the university because the English given in high school was not enough to fulfill their necessities. Also students said that they learn English because as a necessity, and finally they add that learning English during high school was not very important because it was any other subject, but after high school it became important because they realized that the language can be helpful for them in finding jobs regarding their major.
49
33
0 20 40 60
más difíciles igual de difíciles
Si no hubiera llevado la materia
de inglés en el Bachillerato/ la
Preparatoria, mis estudios serían
_____ de lo que son ahora.
36
CHAPTER V
In this chapter, a summary of the results and their main highlights are presented. In addition, the implications of the study, its main limitations, and some directions for further research are also provided.
5.1 Conclusions
Nowadays, humans have the necessity to learn different languages especially English. One of the major societies that need English is the student from high degrees. The results of this analysis show that some students from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla from different majors provided important information to know how necessary English is during and after high school. First of all, the importance of using English for the subjects was confirmed because the students from whom I gathered this data confirmed that the language is extremely important for their degrees, some of them consider in a different level the importance of some elements of the language. As an example the majority of students consider pronunciation and conversations are important and they think in this way because they know they need the language for getting a good job; they know that in many jobs the language is a requirement. When I asked them about the necessity of English, they said that it is very important not only for their degrees, but also for the future jobs they will get. Most of the students seem to be aware that English is going to be necessary for speaking, writing, reading, and listening in their jobs.
37
Even though students from the degrees who know that English is necessary, they did not acquire a good level of English in high school. One of the major reasons is because the course of high school did not cover the expectations of the students regarding grammar, listening, speaking, writing, reading, vocabulary. This causes that the English they learned in high school does not help them totally in their degrees to read and understand texts, either to make good presentations or to engage in a conversation in English, but the knowledge they got has been useful. The level students acquired in high school were not good enough, but it covered the necessities they had when they were in high school that is why, students did not see the language as an imposition. In order to avoid all these situations, students proposed to have more hours of English in high school. This proposal should be taken into account in order to have a better proficiency in the students of high school.
Most of the students of the degrees know that if they had not taken English in high school, their studies would have been more difficult. Now, students have different attitudes towards English, they are interested in the language because they need to practice and to have a better proficiency for their degrees and to get good jobs.
38
People should be more conscious and take advantage when they are able to learn an important and global language such as English.
5.2 Implications
Taking into consideration that learning is a process of looking for significant objectives in an active way, this topic is very important because nowadays English has become universal. Also it is very necessary as we can see that not only children need this language as I mentioned at the beginning of this research but it was also interesting to find out that it is necessary for adults, especially for students who are willing to study a degree.
After applying the questionnaires, I gathered data of former high school students. They said when they began their majors they had different problems in English. They said that in the English classes they needed to use the 4 skills; however the level that they had was not the same that they had during the high school. With this I could say that the program English IV of high school should be inspected based on what students need for when they enter the university. The skills that they need to develop should be useful.
39 5.3 Limitations
This research had some limitations. first, many students of different degrees were unavailable to answer some questionnaires because many of them do not take any English course in their degrees, so, it would be important to take into account that they consider the language important but they do not have the possibility to take any English course. Second, some of the questionnaires were answered quickly; so the answers may not be thought out carefully. Third I could not apply the questionnaire to all the students of the university because I only found some students from different degrees. Despite these limitations, I could obtain results that show the importance of the language.
5.4 Further research
40
41 REFERENCES
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Beverly, k.b (2001) what do you really want? How to get a good goal and go for it. A guide for teens library of congress cataloging in publication data.
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Chan, v. (2001). Determining students‟ language needs in a tertiary setting. English
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multidisciplinary approach. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
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42
Reynolds, c. r., Fletcher-Janzen, e., , , & , (2007).encyclopedia of special education, a reference for the education of children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities and other
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44 APPENDIX B
Encuesta para alumnos de nivel licenciatura.
El siguiente cuestionario tiene la finalidad de saber que tan necesario creen los alumnos de licenciatura que es la materia de Inglés durante y después del Bachillerato/la Preparatoria.
Lee cuidadosamente las preguntas y subraya tu opción de la manera más honesta posible. La información que proporciones será anónima y se usará solo para los propósitos de esta investigación.
1.- ¿Qué tan importante consideras el idioma inglés para tu carrera?
a) Extremadamente importante b) Muy importante c) Algo importante d) Nada importante
2.- ¿Cuál de estos elementos consideras más importante en el aprendizaje del inglés? a) Pronunciación b) Vocabulario c) Gramática d) Fluidez
3.- ¿Para qué consideras que es necesario el inglés en tu carrera? a) Para consultar información en inglés (libros, artículos, internet) b) Para continuar mis estudios
c) Para obtener un buen empleo d) Para proyectos de investigación e) Otros________________________
4.- ¿Cuál de estas habilidades consideras más necesaria para tu carrera? a) Comprensión de textos relacionados a mi carrera
b) Redacción de textos relacionados a mi carrera Sexo: M F Licenciatura__________________
45 c) Conversación / diálogo con colegas de mi profesión
d) Comprensión auditiva relacionada a mi carrera
5.- Considero que aprender inglés es un/una… a) Necesidad b) Obligación c) Gusto
6.- Siento que al finalizar mi bachillerato/ la preparatoria el inglés que obtuve fue…
a) suficiente b)poco suficiente c) insuficiente
7.- El curso de inglés en el bachillerato/ la preparatoria cubrió mis expectativas en cuanto a nuevos conocimientos gramaticales.
a) mucho b) poco c) nada
8.- El curso de inglés en el bachillerato/ la preparatoria cubrió mis expectativas en cuanto a nuevos conocimientos de vocabulario. preparatoria me han servido para dialogar, exponer temas referentes a mi carrera.
a) mucho b) poco c) nada resolvió mis necesidades de aquel entonces.
46 Encierra A, B, C, D.
a) Muy seguro b) Seguro c) Casi seguro d) Nada seguro 16.- Yo creo que en cualquier parte donde vaya a pedir trabajo es ______que me requieran hablar en inglés.
a b c d
17.- Yo creo que en cualquier parte donde vaya a pedir trabajo es ______que me requieran escribir en inglés.
a b c d
18.- Yo creo que en cualquier parte donde vaya a pedir trabajo es ______que me requieran leer en inglés.
a b c d
19.- Yo creo que en cualquier parte donde vaya a pedir trabajo es ______que me requieran escuchar en inglés.
a b c d
20.- Si no hubiera llevado la materia de inglés en el bachillerato/ la preparatoria, mis estudios serían _____ de lo que son ahora.
a) Más difíciles b) Igual de difíciles
